Category: Art

A Father’s Wrath

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Fields, Sky4 Comments

 

foothills storm sharp

Now he’s wrapped himself
in a trench coat of black-cloud darkness.
But his cloud-brightness bursts through,
spraying hailstones and fireballs.
Then God thundered out of heaven;
the High God gave a great shout,
spraying hailstones and fireballs.

But me he caught—reached all the way
from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,
the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down,
but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field;
I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!

(Psalm 18: 11-13, 16-19 The Message)

Some people say God has no wrath, that He is all gentle universal soft love. But when evil threatens a father’s beloved child a good father will defend them and come to their aid -with a vengeance. Our heavenly Father’s wrath toward the evil one, the enemy of our souls, the one who comes to steal kill and destroy, is an indication of his love. He will act. He cares and He has emotion. He sent Jesus Christ to destroy the works of the devil. He is our defense.

Broken Pieces

On By Charis PsalloIn Art6 Comments

 

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The early morning sun streaming through a window brought my attention to a mosaic on the floor of the lobby of the hotel in Israel. In the previous few days we had seen many mosaics, or partial mosaics that had survived from the time of the Romans. Telling the stories of lives long gone, many were outstanding works of art that had endured for centuries. In such a context a contemporary mosaic was easy to overlook.

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This mosaic had in common the same feature of the ancient works though. It still required the down-on-the-knees painstaking placement of tiny pieces of fired, broken clay. The big picture required brokenness.

The words of a Gaither song from years ago came back to me. “Heart aches, broken pieces, ruined lives are why you died on Calvary…”

A lot of us put on a brave front; it’s how we cope in a competitive world that markets people with resumes and promotional materials. But God is not impressed with self-promotion. He wants our broken bits. He can work with broken bits.

Heartache? Failure? Disappointment? Regrets? An honest resume that itemizes our inability to get it together on our own is most impressive to Him. And when he takes us on He makes something beautiful of our lives.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. (Psalm 51:17)

“All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife, but He made something beautiful of my life.”

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Brooding

On By Charis PsalloIn Art4 Comments

1Holy Spirit brooding ch

This is another quick painting from an evening of worship art. I call it “Brooding.”

Sometimes we are not privy to what God is doing. Sometimes the seed deep in the earth, or the new life in the egg stirs when we are unaware of its existance.  One translation of the creation story talks about the Spirit of God brooding over the chaos that He was to  transform by His Word.

It can feel like a very long time between the darkness of the Day of Crucifixion until the light of the Day of Resurrection. This is the time of perseverance. This is the time of clinging by faith to the promises of God.

This is the time when we strain our ears in the silence for the sound of the Spirit taking a breath before he begins to blow  life into that which appears dormant.

The hours, days, years, decades between promise and fulfillment is the time, when in agony of disappointment in our own sense of timing, and stretched beyond what we ever thought we could endure, that we choose to walk by faith and not by sight.

This is the hour we stand, and stand some more and, when we have weakened, rise to stand again and sing, “I trust in Your faithful Love.”

How long, O Eternal One?

How long will You forget me? Forever?
How long will You look the other way?
How long must I agonize,
grieving Your absence in my heart every day?
How long will You let my enemies win

Turn back; respond to me, O Eternal, my True God!
Put the spark of life in my eyes, or I’m dead.
My enemies will boast they have beaten me;
my foes will celebrate that I have stumbled.

But I trust in Your faithful love;
my heart leaps at the thought of imminent deliverance by You.
I will sing to the Eternal,
for He is always generous with me.

(Psalm 13 The Voice)

For Freedom Set Free

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Photography, Sky6 Comments

white clouds
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
(Galatians 5:1)

With what a cost did Christ purchase our freedom! How cheaply we often sell ourselves back into slavery -and just for the reward of being able to measure our spirituality so we can compare our progress to other travelers on this road.  Stand firm therefore, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Holy Fire

On By Charis PsalloIn Art3 Comments

Holy Spirit fire ch

Some lovely friends invited me to join them for a painting class on the theme of prophetic art or worship art. What a beautiful group of people! On this particular evening the instructor played worshipful music and asked us to paint the images -or the feelings- that came to mind when we thought of Holy Spirit. I’ve been trying to teach myself to hold a bigger brush more loosely and save sharply focused realism for photography. I did three very quick paintings in one sitting. Two were peaceful and sweet in soft, even feminine colours. Then, without too much thinking, I grabbed some colours and sloshed them on the canvas. This was the result.

Art is an experience between the work and the beholder and can have more than one interpretation. I sometimes see something the artist didn’t intend to say in a work, and sometimes people interpret my paintings differently as well, and I appreciate that. This time I found myself interpreting my own painting. What does  this say to me? Tongues of fire are often associated with the arrival of Holy Spirit at Pentecost and many songs are written about wanting to be filled with the passionate fire of God. I’ve seen people laugh and sing and praise God when they encounter his goodness. It’s a joyful experience.

But I have learned that not all God-encounters are fun experiences.

Encountering God’s holiness leaves us stripped of any sense of self-righteousness. We cry out like Isaiah, “Woe is me, for I am a person of unclean lips and I come from a people of unclean lips.” We sing, “Purify my heart, let it be as gold, pure gold…” or “Consuming fire, fan into flame a passion for your name…” but we want Him to do this in soft, comforting, nurturing, happy, happy, joy, joy, soft kitty/warm kitty pastel colours.

Holiness hurts.

Isaiah’s lips were symbolically purified when an angel touched them with a burning coal from the fire of God. Ouch!

Peter wrote:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9)

The end result is praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The end result is joy unspeakable and full of glory. The end result is promotion to higher levels of intimacy with the Eternal.

But the process is not always painless. When we pass through the fires that test our faith all the false ideas we treasured are revealed for the mere counterfeit paper copies they are. Sometimes it means choosing, by faith, to lay the unreliable handholds of the past down on the altar before we have any firm handholds for the future. Without a theology that includes suffering we lack the motivation for perseverance that leads to mature character and true hope. Our sense of entitlement makes us avoid pain and equips us with a type of hope that is entirely too flammable. Without an understanding of the role of suffering we are blown away by adversity and crushed by disappointment.

True hope does not disappoint.

 Since then it is by faith that we are justified, let us grasp the fact that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have confidently entered into this new relationship of grace, and here we take our stand, in happy certainty of the glorious things he has for us in the future.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that we have only a hope of future joys—we can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles. Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us. Already we have some experience of the love of God flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us. (Romans 5:1-5 Phillips)

 

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Lessons on Grace

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Water15 Comments

 

Smooth Sailing, oil

This duck can glide smoothly through what looks like turbulence because the water is actually calm. The peaceful surface of the water merely picks up the image of the atmosphere around it.

Sometimes I fail to enjoy the peace the Lord has granted me because I am caught up in the turbulence of the lives of people I care about. It’s a hazard for empathic people whose sensitivity causes them to pick up other people’s emotions. The Bible calls it the gift of mercy. It can be a useful tool, but it is a tool, not a reward, and it needs to be used with skill and wisdom. One of the great frustrations in my life has been the seemingly callous attitudes of people who are oblivious to the pain of others. Nothing stirs up my self-labeled righteous indignation more than non-compassionate people who shrug in the presence of suffering and say, “Not my problem.” It makes me furious!

James 2:14-17 says it’s a useless faith that walks past suffering and says, “Go in peace; keep warm and well-fed,” or as Dickens wrote, “Are there no workhouses?”

But this week the Lord has been smacking me upside the head (ever so lovingly) about misaligned compassion that is actually a lack of faith on my part.

I have discovered 1 Corinthians 12:9,10 to be true in my life.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. ” (1 Corinthians 12:9,10)

It’s not a matter of self-imposed martyrdom or false humility, but I am learning that it is in the areas where I have been, quite frankly, an utter failure that God is most able to communicate his goodness through me. His goodness amazes me and I love to talk about it. But this is where he called me up on the carpet this week.

“Why, when you have experienced My goodness, do you think that I am not able to do the same thing for others?”

“When did I say that?”

“When you keep jumping in to fix things for people. How will they learn to call on Me when they can call on you? Why do you assume I don’t care? Maybe I’m allowing some of the troubles in their lives for a purpose. I want them to ask Me, to know Me. I’ve called you to pray, to intercede. I want you to stand in the gap, not stand in the way.”

I admit, I’m bad at the whole boundaries thing. I was an over-responsible eldest child and had my personal boundaries violated so often I don’t have an innate sense of when I need to step back and let God be God. (Yes, Lord, I realize that is an explanation and not an excuse.) I’m still learning.

I noticed that parents of my students who applied “tough love” as their go-to position used it on teens who had known precious little “gentle love” in the first place. I felt agony for overachiever-types who were locked out of the house for being five minutes late for a 10 p.m. curfew. On the other hand I have also seen far too many young people grow up with a sense of  learned helplessness when their parents ran defense for them with excuse after excuse for their kid’s lack of self-discipline. I’ve also been caught, more than once, pouring more effort into changing someone’s circumstances than they themselves put into changing the habits that got them there. I’ve seen people who haven’t been tempered by adversity presume on the grace of God with a sense of entitlement that reveals a shallow unloving relationship where the Creator of the universe is viewed as their personal Santa Claus. Someone told me the sin of presumption David recognized as a problem in Psalm 19 is assuming God is here to serve your agenda, instead of you being here to serve God’s.

But God forgive me, sometimes I’ve been the enabler, and it’s been the result of my own lack of faith.

Like everyone else I tend to hear what I want to hear. The folk who easily gravitate to “tough love” need to hear the message “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.” (Proverbs 21:13) and the folk who rush in, striving to fix the world themselves need to hear, ““I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:17)

The last one is me. One couple I admire who have cared for thousands of orphans and fed the hungry and healed the sick  and introduced millions to the goodness of God is Heidi and Roland Baker of Mozambique. Heidi repeats, “God is God. I am not.”

This is what I am learning: God gives plentiful grace for our own circumstances. He has grace in overabundant supply for anyone who asks Him. He does not necessarily give me grace to deal with problems that are not mine. When I am overly influenced by the turbulent atmosphere all around me I lose my peace and when I am worried or afraid I can’t move. I’m no help to anyone. My joy becomes forced and my ability to love is limited to my own willpower. I need to be on solid ground myself before I can throw a lifesaver to a drowning person. I need, like this duck on the lake, to appreciate the peace that is mine in Jesus Christ and move on that.

Sorry, Lord. Give me discernment to stand with you and not for you. Your grace is sufficient for all the people I care about as well. I trust you.

Giving It Up

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, WaterLeave a comment

Henderson reflection oil

“Lord in my confusion all my strength is giving in.
My adversary’s everywhere.
It seems that there’s no way to win.
Then, I hear Your voice all through me
Telling me this battle’s Yours, not mine.
I have no choice left to me, but to yield to Your design
As You take it from my hands what can I do
But lift them up in sacrifice to You?

O Lord, Your loving kindness is everlasting,
That’s why I sing.
O Lord, Your loving kindness endures forever
And You are able to deliver me.
Deliver me!”

(From Song of Deliverance by Marty Goetz)

 

In Practice

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Photography6 Comments

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I used to tell my singing students “I would rather you didn’t practise your songs at all than to drill them mindlessly. All you will do is reinforce your mistakes. There is no benefit to routine unless you are thinking about what you are doing. All that work is in vain if we have to spend your lesson time blasting a wrong note or rhythm out of the setting concrete that is habit.”

The benefit of routine is that it keeps you from having to think. As my husband reminds me, if I put my keys in exactly the same place every time I won’t have to think about where I left them. Routine saves time and brain space. Repetition and tradition reinforce important basic concepts and give us patterns for instant responses when we don’t have time to think. Practice and repetition are essential to learning, but when worship and prayer become mere repetitive routines, we are no longer engaged in a truly conscious way, mentally, physically, emotionally or even spiritually.

Jesus warned us not to be lulled into feeling super-spiritual by the number of words we repeat to try to impress God. “Vain repetition” the ancient King James version called it.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. (Matthew 6:6-7)

I love worship music from the heart. Sometimes the tunes that carry my deepest love for the Saviour may be no more complex than nursery songs and when the heart is engaged can be sung over and over as a profound offering of praise.

And sometimes repeated simple choruses with iffy theology are like singing Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall -endlessly.

If God is worthy of our praise he is worthy of our best, thoughtful, skilled, creative, heart-felt praise. Today people with God-given talent like the composers Brahms or Vivaldi or artists Rembrandt or Durer or poet/lyricists Charles Wesley or Isaac Watts often have to go outside the church to find a place where they can praise with their whole beings and where they won’t be accused of “showing off.” Even accounting for the difference in communication styles and artistic vehicles many of us have lost sight of the concept of excellence as a higher form of worship.

No matter the tradition we come from we all have our forms of repetition. Praying differently, mindfully, listening carefully to Holy Spirit as we do so, can be less than placating sometimes.

Lord, be with him…

I never left him.

Comfort her…

She doesn’t need more comfort. She needs to give up the role of perpetual victim and start acting like the brave overcomer I already told her she is.

Let the meeting run smoothly…

There are some old infected wounds that need to be excised first.

Provide for their needs…

You’ve got a fifty in your wallet.

Oh Lord, you are worthy of far more than we tend to give you. Thank you for your forgiveness. Thank you that you are turning our hearts of stone into soft, living beating hearts of love. Thank you that you continue to invite us to fully engage with you with every good thing you have placed in us.

Amazing

On By Charis PsalloIn Art13 Comments
Abundance
Abundance

‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

One of the most common commands given thoughout the Bible is “Fear not.” One of the most common promises,  repeated over and over in the Bible, is the promise of God’s goodness. The Hebrew word checed, variously translated as goodness, kindness, mercy, favour, grace or steadfast love is used over 240 times in the Old Testament alone. We don’t have a word in English that combines the ideas of strength, steadfast love and generosity, so we have to make do with several words or a word combination. Lovingkindness is one of them.

Praise the Lord. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love [checed] endures forever. (Psalm 106:1)

The New Testament word charis is usually translated as grace.

And God is able to make all grace [charis] abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance [perisseuo]  for every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

The word translated “abound” here, persisseuo,  means abundant, overflowing, exceeding a fixed number, excelling, exuberant, extremely rich, over and above, hyper. What is grace that is not “hyper?” Almost enough grace? Barely adequate grace? Scratch-and-dent grace? OK, but you’d better watch it next time grace? Is there anything about God’s grace that is less than amazing?

Can we honestly give God too much credit and not be overwhelmed with thankfulness and praise for every good thing He gives? Can we dare to freely join his His big picture plan with abandon?

Can we stop blaming God for the consequences of our own sinful choices? And can we please stop attributing to Him the works of the evil one, the thief who comes to steal kill and destroy? What is it that overcomes the evil one’s accusations and constant messages of fear and doom and the oldest doubt in the world, “Did God really say?” Is it not by the power of the blood of Jesus Christ, by telling our God-stories, and being willing to voluntarily love Him back with everything He has given us, including our very lives?

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. (Revelation 12:11)

God knows we seem to need to hear both messages a lot –Fear not, and His lovingkindness endures forever.  The assurance of checed is given 240 times in the Old Testament alone. Strangely I find both messages stir up a deep anger in many people who consider themselves to be dutiful Christians. I’m always surprised when stories of God’s goodness in times of trouble when we rely on him, and times of need when we expect Him to give us provisions for the tasks he assigns us, elicit angry responses of “Yeah, but….”

Still, I can’t condemn them when at times I find myself worrying about the future. I hear the Lord asking me, So what has brought you through troubles and tribulations so far?

Grace. Your lovingkindness.

Then don’t be afraid.

Grace, abundant, amazing, overflowing, steadfast, loving, kind, merciful grace will continuously be with you, because I have promised to never leave you, and checed and charis are part of My character. I don’t lie. I don’t change. I AM love. I give abundant grace.

I promise. That’s why I gave my only Son. That’s why my Holy Spirit lives in you. I AM love. 

And you can take that to the bank.

From Whence Comes My Help?

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Mountains7 Comments

Kootenay valley oil

I will lift up my eyes to the hills—

From whence comes my help?

 My help comes from the Lord,

Who made heaven and earth.

 

 He will not allow your foot to be moved;

He who keeps you will not slumber.

 Behold, He who keeps Israel

Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

 

 The Lord is your keeper;

The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

 The sun shall not strike you by day,

Nor the moon by night.

 

 The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;

He shall preserve your soul.

 The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in

From this time forth, and even forevermore.

(Psalm 121)